The Bengaluru police have arrested three people for allegedly duping several residents a total of over Rs 50 crore by offering rented houses on lease.
The three have been identified as Ramana, Naveen, and Sudhir – all of them worked as agents of a property management firm.
The prime accused in the case, Vivek Keshavan, who is the owner of the property management firm called Catena Homes India Private Limited, is absconding. The office of the firm is located in Electronic City.
On Tuesday, hundreds of victims approached the deputy commissioner of police (Electronic City) and requested him to take action in the matter.
How did the system run?
Catena Homes offered houses on lease to residents, while telling house owners that they were giving the units on rent. Many residents, mostly migrants, had taken houses on lease from the firm in Marathahalli, Banaswadi, Whitefield, and the Electronic City area. While Catena remained the bridge between house owners and the residents, the house owners were kept in the dark. People paid between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 50 lakh to get houses on lease.
According to a police officer, the company ran into losses during the COVID-19 lockdown as many of their clients returned to their home states. “There is also information that the Income Tax department had conducted a raid in connection with violating tax norms and had frozen the company’s accounts,” the police officer said.
Swapna, one of the victims, said she had paid Rs 20 lakh to get a house on lease for two years. “We found Catena on nobroker.com, and later we paid them Rs 20 lakh for a 2BHK. But recently, the house owner demanded that we vacate the house. I contacted Vivek and his team to repay the money, but they were not available. Now, the owner is forcing us to leave the house, and my Rs 20 lakh is stuck. We don’t know what to do,” she added.
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Venkat Ramu said he paid Rs 25 lakh to Catena for a 3 BHK apartment. “I took a loan from the bank and paid Rs 25 lakh. But now, the owners are asking to vacate. Catena agents asked me to request the owners to give us a month, by which they would repay the lease money. We did the same but did not get the money back,” he further said.
A police officer said multiple FIRs have been registered in connection with the case.